


The First Week

by littlemotel



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-02
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2018-03-20 22:19:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3667314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlemotel/pseuds/littlemotel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Eobard Thawne does not matter to time - does not matter to this time - and so he must be erased for now."</p><p>Spoilers for s01e17.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The First Week

Tomorrow morning, Central City would wake up to three different news reports.

The first is the death of Nora Allen, by her husband Dr. Henry Allen. It would be the most startling of the three and would rack the neighborhood in fear and anguish over the death of a beloved woman in the suburban dwelling outside the city.  
The second is a carjacking from a local house, described as a 2000 model gray Sedan with some bumper stickers attached to the back. A detached brag about how their child is an honor roll student, on display for anyone they ride in front of.  
The third is the robbery of a local clothing outlet in the middle of the late night, cameras catching no discernible face and no evidence for who it could have been. Not much would be found stolen in terms of actual clothes, but the register would be short about two hundred dollars.

Eobard Thawne will not hear of any of this news, but he knows it will happen just from logic alone. He is responsible for all three.

First was the death of Nora Allen. An unintentional death on his part, but not one he feels guilty over. He may not have been able to kill Barry Allen, but killing his mother and seeing his father blamed for the murder will certainly make him suffer for many years. He takes some pleasure in that grain of knowledge, even if the dread of being marooned hundreds of years in the past overcomes it with ease. 

After falling to a stop in the middle of the road, he hijacked the aforementioned car from a nearby home. Breaking into it was no trouble -- even the most stylish and pristine models on the streets were nothing but old steel to him. The same interior and wiring as all the other cars of this time and easy to hijack with an old fashioned technique. Fitting, really. He doubts the family would miss the car he stole from their driveway much, one of two they parked. If they did, it didn’t matter to him. It would be abandoned quickly once he got what he needed. To be a common thief was beneath him, but he was stuck in this situation and had to take drastic measures to get out. Anyone who could fit into his shoes would have to understand at some point or another. He simply understands the reality he’s faced with faster. A loose moral compass was helpful for that, as much as he was always criticized for it in the past.

Lastly he drove to the city and broke into a small clothing store. Logically the small stores have less means of security detection and in this era there are even less safeguards than back home. He may not be able to run, but he could still push the very last fragments of the speedforce in him to vibrate lightly and break the doorknob to get in. His costume already hid his face and the lack of light meant the surveillance equipment would be of little help. A quick change of clothes, his suit returned to his ring, and he was looking positively normal. Some cash would be necessary, as he didn’t exactly keep a wallet in his suit (and even then, the digitized currency of his time would not be acceptable now) so he grabbed all the twenty-bills and ten-bills and got out in under five minutes.

Once all this was done, it was time to formulate a plan. Without Barry Allen to siphon speedforce from, he could not recharge. Logically this means he would need to wait for Barry to become The Flash in this era. The only problem is it would be another twenty years before that would happen. The Particle Accelerator that granted those magnificent gifts is nothing but a small glimmer that has not even formed into a concrete idea. He refuses to wait that long. Even the thought of being here for another day makes his head spin and it’s then that he dawns on a horrific fact. He will have to assimilate with this time period because he will have to live in it for however long it takes to recharge. He has to adjust and not just learn the culture of this world, but live within it. Reading about the past can be fun and charming. It’s so easy to pick up a book and laugh about the silly outdated ideas and morals that people had even just a few decades ago. Wonder how it was ever possible that such a period existed - how uncultured and ignorant people were compared to the present day. It’s another thing to be living in that outdated culture, surrounded by such ignorance, and having to adapt to it.

The future he needs would take too long under ordinary circumstances. Though he is cautious about altering the timeline and it’s a great risk, he knows of one way to make it faster. A push in the right direction is all he needed to do. So he set a course to Maryland using the crude and still infant GPS system installed in the car and left Central City, knowing one day he would be back.

###### 

The ride from Missouri to Maryland was more arduous than he anticipated. This GPS was still infantile in its route detection and direction, leading to several wrong turns and time wasted. Plane would have been the fastest way to go, but he had no papers that would let him board one. The time to make even fake ones would take too long and hold too much risk of being caught. No bus was going to take him through several states without many changes and he hates sitting for long periods of time. He would gladly go by foot if his fight didn’t extinguish the last of the speedforce within his cells. He would gladly do a lot of things if his speed wasn’t gone. Killing Barry Allen and Going Home being the top two on that list, in order.

If his plans go accordingly, he may just have both. Patience is a virtue.

It took 20 hours to make it to the state after almost driving non-stop. He would only stop three times to refill on gas, get a cup of cheap barely drinkable coffee to keep awake, and have a small diner meal, as he pushed himself to keep going with minimal rest. The work in the beginning would need to go fast, because the middle would be a long stretch that would certainly take at least several years. Best to get the most painful aspects of his plan out of the way immediately.

He parked outside the library and slept in his car, still several hours away from the opening hour after driving almost an entire day since he came to this year. Still less than 24 hours ago he failed and the failure was what occupied his mind as he closed his eyes and tried to rest. When he wakes up he immediately goes inside the library and heads to a computer. A quick internet search on the public library computers was all it took to find the location, once he adjusted to using a model that he’s only ever seen in the pictures of history books and museums. He left the library in a rush and drove to the lab with frantic anticipation. It’s ten in the morning and he sees several cars parked outside, making it easy to blend in without odd looks. Now it was a matter of waiting for the work day to end. Stupidly he dozed off in the driver’s seat after a couple hours, his limits proving to be pushed too far, and woke up in a daze to the sound of two voices chatting from a few yards away. It took a few moments for reality to hit him like cold water when he got a look at them through bleary eyes, but it was unmistakably the same people who he recognized only from old photos in his books.

Harrison Wells and Tess Morgan. The married couple of scientists working together in their small lab in Maryland, planning to expand into Central City with the promise of scientific advancements uninterrupted by the politics of government and corporate business. He appreciated the freed sentiment of such a place greatly, even if it sounded like a dream than a feasible reality. He was the physicist and she was the engineer. He had the mind for ideas and she had the mind to make them reality. Together they would push the boundary of what was considered to be “possible” and redefine the “impossible.” The next Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton. However the most notable achievement they would ever give to history is the Particle Accelerator of Central City, housed in the Scientific and Technological Advanced Research Lab. S.T.A.R. Labs for short. The pioneers of the future - history would describe them as a perfect match and truly they could be considered to be the parents of modern science even in his time. It made what he was going to do all the more unfortunate to history, but he has no intention of being ancient history along with them. That is all he will be if he does not get out of this godforsaken time.

After chatting outside they got into their car and drove home. He breathes and counts to ten before beginning to following directly behind. History never did much to record their personalities, though the books he read on S.T.A.R. Labs informed him that they were considered to be kind and quiet people. The “parents of modern science” was not just a phrase made because of their gift to science, but because they were truly like parents in personality. Science was their child, the people who worked under them like family and the public were the receivers of this gift of life. Two people full of love. Love that Eobard cannot completely comprehend, but love that he found poetic and even romantic when the book he read described them as such. They had no suspicions toward a car following their exact path from work to home behind them, not thinking of what sort of horrible things could happen around them at any moment or any time. They are happy people. Normal, incredibly brilliant, contently happy people.

They seem so very nice, but he begins to question the intelligence all the books praised.

He parked the car about a block away from their home and spent the evening in the cramped backseat. Nothing to entertain him or comfort him but his mind, his thoughts, his absolute failure. How did he not keep better track of the speedforce within his cells? He spent so much time near Barry Allen as they raced together that he lost sight of his limitations - too caught up in his goal to murder the child that would one day be his idol and his enemy. The man he sought to be so much like and the man he ripped apart time to kill. Going so fast that he didn’t foresee the possibility that if he did kill Barry as he wanted, he would still be stuck here because there would be no more speedforce left to take. For how can he be the reverse of a man who does not exist? Ironically his plan to kill Barry Allen to bring an end to the Scarlet Speedster would also bring about his own end in this primitive world. There would be absolutely no hope of returning home. For now hope still lives as a flickering small light. A light that will spark into something greater in the next decade, within the boy who will become his ideal of heroism. For what is Barry Allen if not the idealistic hero: brave, kind, hopeful, a willing martyr to the people. An ideal Eobard has admired for many years and one he can never be because of who he is.

He tries to lay down in back seat uncomfortably, feeling too anxious to be lulled into slumber. He keeps thinking ahead of what will happen after this first stage. He pulls out the genetic recomposition device from his inner coat pocket and carefully turns it in his hands, observing its outer shell. After he does this, after he plugs one half into Harrison Wells and the other into himself, there will be no going back. No second chances if he slips up. He will take the face, the skin, the blood, the very essence of the man. The device is highly experimental and he has no idea what could happen if something goes wrong. Will it even be reversible when he returns home? Surely, he hopes, there will be some way. Eobard Thawne does not matter to this time. He won’t matter for a long time. And yet, here he is. He exists here and now, but after tomorrow he will erase himself and become Harrison Wells. He will look into a mirror and only see Harrison Wells. Every paper he will have to sign, every moment he will have to introduce himself to a new person, every single thing he will do will be defined by that name. The name of a man who will die and be revived within the shell of a man not yet alive.

Eobard Thawne, the man who is not yet alive to the world. Who does not yet matter. Harrison Wells, the man who will be reborn. Who will be the father of modern science. He can only be one of these men at a time.

He takes a breath and begins to count himself to sleep, uninterrupted.

###### 

Only an hour after he woke up did they leave the house, packing what looked like the supplies for a perfect day at the beach into the trunk of their car. He followed them once more, astonished that they did not notice the same car that followed them yesterday was following them again today. What simple minded people, unaware of the dangers that lurked. Truly enviable.

That’s how he has come here, to the boardwalk of a beach in Maryland in the present. They were planning to be on the beach for a while from what he could tell. Cautiously he separated himself from them, remembering their location relative to the boardwalk, and went to take care of other matters. First he ate a burger at a stand and relished in the grease, the processed meat, the taste of something in his mouth after going without food for over a day. It felt like centuries since he ate a proper meal. After that he drove away from the beach, still confident his targets would not be leaving for a long time, and went back into town to buy a strip of tire spikes. The rest of the money remaining after the cost of gas, coffee and meals is more than enough to buy two strips.

He returns in the middle of the day and they are right where he left them earlier. He stands by the rail of the boardwalk and taps his fingers on the old metal, working out step by step in his mind how he would kill the people having such a pleasant day together. At this point it's expected that they haven’t noticed him, but it still greatly bothers him. He has made so little attempt to hide, preferring plain sight to shadows, but it’s almost pitiable how unaware they are of what’s to come. For a man like himself, with so little pity to spare already, he can’t help but direct that small grain amount to his victims. Never will they live to see their work. He will steal it all and so much more from the man he will camouflage as.

As the sun began to set on the warm sand, lighting up the sea through the illusion of reflection, he attempted to tune his ears to their distant conversation. He couldn’t make out everything they were saying, but he could faintly hear their light laughter and their talk about their plans for S.T.A.R. Labs. He made no expression when Tess Morgan randomly created the name for one of the most important facilities in all history through just simple love. No thought to what the lab would stand for as an institution, no care for what it would be referred to. It was just out of love for her husband.

Love, to him, was nothing but the interaction of chemicals in the mind, the instinctual need to be with another human for whatever purpose, be it to tame lust or reproduce for the greater good of humanity. Love, for them, would give birth to their science and discovery. Love, for Harrison Wells, would crush his heart when his wife died in a car accident and force him to go to Central City to try and forget the pain. A place where no one knew his name. What will Harrison Wells be like after Tess Morgan, the light of his life, dies in a horrible accident? He likes to believe Harrison Wells will turn aloof and brusque, though not unkind to the public or his assistants, engrossing himself in his work because it is the easiest way to distract from his loss. Harrison Wells will lose Tess Morgan and Eobard Thawne will lose himself. Work for the future will be the best distraction for both losses the men will suffer. For now, the thoughts of such a future distract him from how slowly this beach day is going. Patience is a virtue, even if it is not the most exciting thing in the world to practice.

Quietly he breathes in through his nose and folds his hands tightly, canting his head in thought. How will it be like to _be_ Harrison Wells. The man who created The Flash, who is considered to be as much of importance to this time as Einstein was to the early 1900s. There will be books written about him, articles about his S.T.A.R. Labs ( _his_ lab) that praise his genius intellect. He will be praised even more than history intended, because Harrison Wells will have the knowledge of a man from centuries ahead of his time. Sure there are some things he logically shouldn't alter the invention of, but Harrison wells will be regarded as even greater than he already was. Every century has their genius and this century it will undoubtedly be Harrison Wells. Tess Morgan would be too, but she will be dead before her time to shine in his plan. It’s nothing personal, but he can’t have someone around who can compromise his identity. If Harrison came alone, perhaps, it would be a different story. However she would be the first person to notice abnormalities that could lead to questions and complications that he has no desire to deal with. With any hope she will die in the accident. If she does not, he will have to kill her there before any police may come. Her tragic death will become part of Harrison Wells' history and people will praise his ability to live on without her, but still be inspired by who she was. She will become an essential part of his rise, without being a competitor for it.

Yes, rewriting history to be the single father of modern science sounds perfect to him. Time will forgive, as long as The Flash comes to exist. So long as Barry Allen is hit by a lightning bolt, he doesn't really care so much for what comes before that.

Finally (and good grief is it a long _finally_ ) they begin to pack up. She begins to fold up the chairs and the blanket and he goes for the umbrella, giving Eobard a far away look at the face he will soon have. He remembers again that there is no going back. Eobard Thawne does not matter to time - does not matter to this time - and so he must be erased for now. It is fact and yet it stings so cold to know he will be gone and live in the body of a corpse. He slips his hands off the rail and begins to walk away, going for his car in the parking lot. He’s going to need to leave ahead of time and find the right spot on their route to set the spike line.

He tenses his hands on the wheel and sticks the key in the ignition. For a long moment he doesn’t move the key, a thought coming to him. It’s a stupid idea, born out of a pathetic fear. He does not want fear to rule him. He cannot have fear if he is going to assimilate into the life of a man for what could be the next decade. One hand leaves the wheel and his fingers rake through his blond hair, press against his forehead and the bridge of his nose. His face is going to disappear. He’s going to become some deadman, a walking corpse, and he’s going to have that face until he finally goes home and fixes it. If he even can fix it.

He will not. He refuses. He. Will. Not. He will not. He will not. He will--

Tap on the ring on his left hand and out comes the head of a digital woman.

“Gideon, are your internal functions still operational?”

“Yes, Professor Thawne. What do you need?”

He gnashes his teeth against themselves, hard. This is absolutely stupid. It could threaten so much of his operation if its ever discovered.

“Professor Thawne?”

“Take a picture of me. Right now.”

There is a long pause that fills the air between him and the computerized A.I. that may as well be the only thing of any small sentience that he can fully relate to anymore. A gentle click snaps and the smooth artificial voice speaks again.

“Your picture has been taken. Would you like to view it?”

“No. Keep it until I say otherwise.”

He then turns her off and angrily yanks the ring off his finger, leaving a small red mark on his hand when he does, and tosses it into the glove compartment. He takes a sharp breath, feeling anger rise for the first time since he skid and crashed on the road, and turns the key.

It’s time to get to work.

###### 

It’s been four days since an unfortunate car crash led to the death of his wife Tess. She was pronounced dead on the sight of the accident by the paramedics, passing away from injuries approximately five minutes after the crash. He was hospitalized that same night, but released the next day after no major injuries were detected apart from a small head wound that healed overnight. The doctors called it miraculous that he did not suffer more, physically speaking that is. He described to the police exactly what happened that led to the accident. He was coming back home after a lovely day with Tess on the beach, when suddenly the tires went out and the car spiraled into the horrific accident they found. He regained consciousness in his seat, remembering the faint sounds of sirens wakening him, but Tess did not respond to any call he made for her.

Investigation on the road would later lead to find the spike strip, which was there without authorization. Fingerprints matched against a database would come back inconclusive. A local hardware store employee described a tall man with short blond hair, blue eyes and a hardy face coming into the store that same day and buying two spike strips. The man paid with cash, giving no name or ID, but they promised him that they would work to track down this man and question his activities that day.

Tess is buried with a small gathering of close friends and family. His small assortment of relatives lived out of state and could not attend, but they sent tearful sounding condolences to his phone. Tess was loved by them and she would be missed in their hearts. The day after she was buried there was a larger yet still humble reception for everyone to share in her memory. People told stories of the way she lit up a room with her smile, her openness to the world and to love. One family member, an uncle, talked about how her father fostered her love of science at a young age by encouraging her to explore and be allowed to make and learn from mistakes. Friends from graduate school and colleagues at the lab spoke fond words of her work ethic, her passion and that her loss was not just to everyone in the room, but to science itself.

Then it was his turn to speak. He spoke of the day he first met Tess, as he stood in front of the room next to the table with framed photos of her spread across it. He talked about their days together in graduate school, how they began their relationship while painstakingly working on their PhD theses. In those trying times they knew that they were the most stable thing in the world, even more stable than their research, and that their mutual encouragement was what gave them the strength to carry on through times of tribulation. Tess was barely thirty and had a bright future ahead of her that was cruelly flicked out by such an unfortunate fate.

He openly spoke that he knew there were people in the room who blamed him for her death. That he should have been more cautious, should have been more careful on the road, more vigilant of something that could endanger them. What did he miss on that day that led to this? He apologized sincerely, saying that he did not believe in that moment that anything could go wrong. That there could not be a dark cloud on what was a perfect day. He showed them the drawing he made on a napkin, describing how he and Tess spoke about their future on the same day hers disappeared. The dream of opening up a new laboratory in Central City, a quaint city in the heart of Missouri, and that he would make that dream a reality. That lab would be called S.T.A.R. Labs in her honor, the name she made herself in a moment of inspiration and out of love. The Scientific and Technological Advanced Research Lab.

Everyone in the room gave a polite clap for his eulogy, many people shook his hand and grieved with him. Even he was in tears at the end of it all. Everyone felt his pain, his grief, his desire to create something in the memory of the woman they all lost. The president of his graduate university and the director of the science department, both attending out of respect for one of the hardest working graduates gone too soon, promised to donate a significant sum of money to the creation of the S.T.A.R. Labs. It was a gracious offer that he accepted with a pained smile. Their donation would surely help the facility go up even sooner than Tess and him originally planned and he made sure to note that to them. He promised them that her dream would not die with her. Other esteemed members of the science community in the county made similar promises of contribution, the work Tess Morgan and her husband being of great importance to their hearts.

It would be another couple hours before the last of the stragglers would leave him alone, the sun now gone and replaced with a cloudy black sky. Only once they were gone would he slip the glasses off his face and discard them onto the dining room table. Being Harrison Wells for a whole day was exhausting. He’s amazed he was able to cry so easily over a woman who he said just four days ago was “dead for centuries” to the man whose life he took in the most literal sense of taking. He’s shocked he could make up so many things that everyone believed. It seemed almost bizarre that they did believe it all, because surely one person would notice something strange right? Her uncle especially -- the man seemed to be like a second father to her. Did he really fool all those people so simply? Part of him doesn’t believe it. Part of him fully believes it.

There are two parts of him, now in one. The things he thought he was making up are faint memories in him, like recollecting a story he once read long ago. That machine was much more thorough than he accounted for.

He’s ready to go into his bedroom, but then stops by a closed door next to it. The entrance to the bathroom. He is hesitant, but he knows he must go inside. It is not the first time he will see himself in the mirror, he reminds himself, but every time still feels painful. He has to get use to seeing that face and frequent exposure will help him adjust. The shock will go away, he thinks, as he works toward his assimilation. He’s going to need to do a lot of work for that. Picking up history texts to refresh his memory of significant events he should reasonably know, watching news reports and reading papers to get invested in this dead culture. Good grief he’s going to have to watch a lot of television in his spare time, because so much of it has to be different. He’s going to need to get use to using archaic technology and bite his tongue on what is to come. It’ll be another few years before cell phones become a commonplace part of everyday life and another few before it fully ingrains itself into mass consumption as a necessity. How do people live like this?

He slowly opens the door and saunters into the white walled bathroom, never before going as slow as he is now, and looks at himself in the mirror above the sink. His face is longer and less wide. His hair is shorter and an ebony black color, a far cry for the dirty blond he once had. His eyes, as an incredibly small consolation, are still a bright hue of blue. The skin is a paler shade of white than before, though not sickly so, and his expression is the sort someone would make when sadly looking upon the corpse of someone they cared for. He stares at the man in the mirror and tries to remember his family tree. If this is the year 2000, then his most prominent ancestor should be...Edward Thawne. Still young, maybe a year or two older than Barry Allen, and living in Keystone City. No worries for now. He’ll have to do his best not to cross paths with him too much. The potential catastrophe that could come from messing with his ancestor will not be beneficial. Best to leave that alone unless he has to interfere for the better of his timeline.

Tomorrow he will make the plans to sell the house. He will take what can fit into a couple moving vans and prepare to leave for Central City within the month. If the timetable he currently has outlined works out, the Particle Accelerator will be turned on in the next ten years. Fifteen, at the worst.

Tiredly he pulls away from the mirror, closing the door behind him and rubbing his face upon his hands as he walks to the bedroom. One nice thing about a dead wife is he gets a whole double bed to himself. He sits upon the mattress and opens up the drawer of the nightstand by the bed, picking out the golden ring he kept on his person. Thankfully no one questioned him about why he owned a ring with a lightning bolt on it, thinking it must have been some weird memorabilia item. He gently slides the ring onto his hand and out comes Gideon with a tap of his finger.

“Hello Professor Thawne. What can I do for you?”

Professor Thawne. He scrunches his left hand against his leg briefly, a unconscious twitch, and sighs.

“Nothing,” he says with a tense breath, before continuing. “I’m just going to let you know that our correspondence will need to be kept to a minimum for the next several months, so no one finds out about your existence. Once S.T.A.R. Labs is operational, I’ll create a more suitable home for you to inhabit and keep me updated.”

“Understood. Is that all?”

“...No,” he says in a breathless whisper, realizing something important. “Gideon, I’m going to need you to change how you address me from now on. I can’t risk the possibility that someone may learn who I really am.” He sniffs in a small breath and lifts his hand to gently flex the fingers. “From now on please address me as Dr. Wells, even in private.”

Dr. Harrison Wells. That is who he is now. That is who he must be now. If he is to assimilate, it must be a full assimilation. He must never be tempted to utter the name “Eobard Thawne” unless he does so by choice. No one should speak that name to him, not even his electronic assistant.

“Understood, Dr. Wells,” she says with the ease of a computer changing the name of its user with a simple command. “Sir, may I make a suggestion to you?”

The sudden remark makes him tilt his head. It is not often that Gideon speaks with her own suggestion and remarks without prompt. He’s glad to see this time era won’t stop her from developing further intelligence.

“Go ahead Gideon.”

“If your intent is to conceal any evidence of your identity as Eobard Thawne, then I highly advise you delete the photograph you took of yourself four days ago. If someone manages to access it, though the likelihood of such a situation is determined to be miniscule, it could immediately compromise your secret.”

The photo. He almost forgot about it in the swirl that has been the past few days. His moment of weakness. His proof of existence.

“Gideon...is that the only picture you have recorded of me? Of Eobard Thawne?”

“Yes sir.”

The last proof of his existence.

“Bring it up for me, please.”

“Certainly.”

With a gentle ping the head vanishes and instead a small display comes up, showing a picture of Eobard Thawne. He looks tense and a little messy, sleep deprivation clear in his gaze, and looks like he might want to throw up. Short blond hair, dark blue eyes, a wide face and slightly tall forehead. The man not yet born to time. The picture of the man who spent a whole day on the boardwalk of a beach, shadowing Harrison Wells and plotting his death and rebirth. Who drove from Missouri to Maryland, all with the intent of killing a woman and becoming another man. A picture taken in a moment of existential weakness, as if to remind Harrison Wells that he is really Eobard Thawne in his private moments.

He knows better than that. One of the two men must be discarded and he has already made his choice. He cannot live as two men in one body. He cannot be reminded of who he was because it will make him weak.

“Delete it.”

He takes one last hard look at the photo and then, in a flash, it is wiped away in front of his eyes with a blip. Gideon’s head once again returns to the ring.

“Picture deleted.”

“Thank you, Gideon,” he says quietly, a pang of weakness coming out once more in his voice. No more Eobard Thawne - now there is only Harrison Wells. “I need to get some sleep now, it’s been a very long week.”

“It certainly has. Good night, Dr. Wells.”

The head pings away and vanishes from the ring. He slips it off and gently places it back into the drawer, then begins to undress for the night. He takes a quick shower, brushes his teeth, splashes water on his face and wipes it away. Once more he takes a long look at his face, _his_ face, and tries to forget every feature he once had. Forgetting would make acclimating to the change faster, but it comes with greater difficulty than he first imagined. He walks to his bedroom and goes under the covers, turning off the lamp with a pull of a metal cord that faintly clangs against the metal it's attached and leaves a gentle echo in its wake.

Good bye Eobard Thawne. Until the time comes to be born again.

**Author's Note:**

> Some last words.
> 
> -I used "Professor Thawne" as a logical step from another name Reverse Flash goes by: Professor Zoom. I'm guessing ahead of time that the title will appear eventually.  
> -I attempted to do my own editing process for this fic, so if there are any grammar/spelling mistakes then my bad for not catching them. This whole thing was written in about a day after a strike of inspiration led to a long string of time with just writing and it came out much longer than I originally intended.  
> -A lot of this extrapolation on what I think the show creators talked about in relation to Eobard absorbing some of Harrison's mannerisms and some memories. I highly doubt it's a Firestorm situation, where Harrison Wells is alive inside of Eobard, and think it more like an echo of memories and feelings. Like a conscience, a voice in the mind, attempting to steer right and wrong decisions. Harrison Wells gives Eobard a means to relate and connect with a world where everyone is dead in the time he came from.
> 
> Any comments/kudos/whatever are appreciated. Thanks for reading!


End file.
